IS IT A GOOD MOVIE? LOCK UP is the quiet stepchild of the Sylvester St

[deleted]

Wtf are u talking bout OP? Over the top is one of slya best.

Don't hunt what you can't kill!

Donald Sutherland deserved his Razzie nomination. Jesus, what a loathsome ham.

Yeah, I like this film as well. While it's far from perfect, it certainly wasn't deserving of being nominated for several Razzies.

Sly's quite good in the lead and Sutherland's a hissable villain. I also enjoyed the supporting turns from John Amos, Frank McRae and Tom Sizemore.

7/10

Yeah, I agree, it is a good movie.

I rewatched it recently, expecting only some sort of nostalgia fun, and I was very surprised when I realized it actually had a story, interesting characters, some good dialogues, and good acting, even from Stallone. There was heart, there was tension and I rooted for the characters. I really didn't expect that. Sure, it isn't more realistic than your average prison drama and looking at it now it there are clichés here and there, but overall, it's quite well done in every sense.

Its older imdb rating (5.4 in 2006) was shocking. And it did flop in 1989. I figured out it must be because it was so much different than Stallone's usual output. It didn't have many action scenes but had a lot of drama, thus it wasn't the type of movie a Stallone fan expected. So they rated it low. And those who would have wanted to see a good drama, ignored it as they thought it was just another dumb Stallone flick. And the few who rated it on its own merits has seen it somehow by accident, or could just adapt to a different style. Would it have been Robert De Niro instead of Sylvester Stallone in the main role (and once again, Sly's performance was quite good in this one), it'd be regarded as a semi-classic (if not an actual classic) now.

This movie is a proof that the "underrated" concept makes sense sometimes.

In the long run, it will gain better reputation. In the last 9 years, the imdb rating went up from 5.4 to 6.3. I hope it'll get even higher. But of course, it'll always remain somewhat hidden and never be loudly acknowledged.

I agree, I think this movie is pretty awesome!

Gosh now OP has convinced me that I need to re-watch and re-rate it.

I'll admit, I AM one of those Sly fans who did initially rate it low (I gave it a 5 out of 10) because when I saw it back in the early 90s it wasn't my cup of tea. I expected Sly to do exactly what you said: shoot people up and bust out of prison. Keep in mind that just a couple of years later a vehicle originally written for Schwarzenegger called Fortress came out starring Christopher Lambert that was a bit more in line to what most people probably expected from Lock-Up.

Also, coming off huge hits in Rocky IV and Rambo III, and the release of Predator, Die Hard, and Lethal Weapon within that late 80s period, it was pretty obvious people were expecting nothing but high-end testosterone from the leading male action heroes of that era, and Lock-Up was not that kind of film.

I think the movie probably would have done a lot better following the release of the original Rocky or just before the release of Over The Top, but sandwiched in between all those high-octane ultra violent flicks, along with the burgeoning smash hits of Bloodsport and Above the Law from action-hero newcomers Jean-Claude Van Damme and Steven Seagal, and it was easy to see how poor 'ole Lock Up didn't stand a chance at the box office.

However, I haven't seen the film since the early 90s, and I don't remember much about it. So I may have to re-watch it again sometime soon and re-rate it accordingly. And given today's torrent of horrible SJW films, I've found myself re-rating a lot of 80s and 90s fare much higher these days than I originally did when I saw the films back when they came out.